The Scientist
by oswinian
Summary: A little post-fall misery summary, with a happy ending.


**Hey guys, this is my first fic and it is based roughly on the song the Scientist by Coldplay, you can pick out at few liners. I don't own this song, or anything to do with BBC sherlock, I just wanted to share my story! please r&r!**

* * *

There were so many things John wanted to say to Sherlock before the fall, but talking through things had become to seem pointless to him. Many of the thoughts he wished to share he was sure could not pass through his lips, even if he tried. He had screamed at Sherlock before it happened. No, you can't do this. You are too important. I don't believe this. You don't know how lovely you are. I'm sorry, give me another chance. I need you. I love you. Tell me your secrets, I can help. Don't, just... Don't.

Nobody said it would be easy, the doctor glumly thought, but it shouldn't be this hard. Sherlock was just an annoying man-child, John told himself, a brilliant man with no boundaries, trying to ignore his human urges to live solely in his mind.

John's mind, conscious and unconscious, refused to believe he was gone. Eyes picking out the tallest man in a crowd, heart rising to his throat at the sight of a billowing coat. John spent less and less time in public. In his dreams, Sherlock was still running about, greeting demons with a smile, working out cold cases from Lestrade's files without lifting a finger. Pacing around the flat with his harpoon, waiting for a murder. Lying on the couch, fingers steeped, with too many nicotine patches on his arm. John dreamed of his memories, of the ghosts of Sherlock that lingered about the flat. "I need to get out," he said aloud. Nobody was there to hear him.

The day before, he had made himself a cup of tea, and sat down in his own chair, staring at the one across. He wondered if it still smelled like Sherlock. If Sherlock had left any hints in the flat, ones that he didn't see as he had tore it apart in frustration the week before.

The thought of him obsessing over the death of the detective was strange to the soldier, who seen many of his friends, even closer than him than Sherlock, die on the battlefield. Somehow, those deaths were justified. It was Afghanistan, a different climate, continent and central belief. Death belonged in Death did occur in London,it wasn't the same. There was a border, a policy. Death existed in London, but it was always someone else getting hurt as the final result, not someone close, not Sherlock.

People tried to keep him busy, Mrs. Hudson wanted to watch telly and have tea, Harry wanted to catch up over a coffee, Mycroft summoned him with black cars and threatening men. These offers began to dwindle with time, as John became less and less patient with those offering to help.

He sometimes visited the grave. Sometimes it would be multiple times a week, other times it would be a couple of months between visits, but Sherlock never left John's mind.

Science and progress, thought Sherlock Holmes. As he circled the globe searching for Moriarty's men, he often remembered fond moments of the Baker Street Flat. Life had gotten too simple, too comfortable, and had been disrupted for the best, he decided. Sentiment is overrated, all it leaves is pain, and Sherlock knew he couldn't deal with much more before he'd burst. It was such a shame for him and John to part though - they had made quite a team, the doctor and the detective. Science and progress was all that Sherlock had left now, for even his mysterious black locks had to be shed for the task. The incredibly mundane (at least to Mr. Holmes) task of finding, bating, and destroying the men preoccupied little of Sherlock's time. However, Sherlock soon began to wonder, which occupied more of his mind; science and progress, or his newly grown heart that had been shoved under the metaphorical rug when the work came to play. The lump under the rug was getting bigger and smellier and threatened to ruin the intricately woven fabric and design of the rug, and ultimately, call attention towards it. It was noticed, by a slimy little man with a genius mind to rival the Holmes', who threatened to burn it; throw it in the incinerator and laugh like a little boy who had just squashed a bug.

Sherlock quickly found a nice drawer to hide it in before the mess could be found, and there it sat in the drawer, until Sherlock returned to 221b.

Guessing at numbers and puzzles was the best that John could do for Lestrade, trial and error of all the things that Sherlock had ever tried on anything. This lasted for a very long time. But Lestrade was desperate for help, and John was just desperate for Sherlock. He'd been having the dreams again, nothing strange would happen, he would be doing a normal task such as making tea or helping Mrs. Hudson with the shopping, and suddenly feel a pair of cold eyes on him. The perfectly cool grey-blue-ice that had the ability to slice a cadaver to slivers or dissolve a block of salt with one steely glance. Must be seeing him again, thought John. He ran around in circles in desperation trying to hold onto his fragments of Sherlock, creating the illusion that he was running right beside him. He was disgusted at the thought of it, but yet couldn't stop, and then, all of a sudden, he would find himself running beside Sherlock, leading the way, arresting the brother with the green ladder. John didn't notice until the case was solved that he man he spent three years missing had actually returned.

John's "welcome home gesture" upon glancing at the expression on Sherlock's face was a fist, followed quickly by a thrust of force bringing him back up to his feet, and tackled into a rib crunching hug. Sherlock was eternally grateful for this - as emerging from the drawer he had locked himself into, he was able to breathe clean air again. Nothing could have made him happier.

Soon he would find though, upon returning to the flat together, the heart was placed upon the table: the table where tea is made, experiments were kept and notes and sorts exchanged. The heart that had grown in poor conditions, blamed and rotted and almost thrown In the fire, and that had been starved of oxygen had begun to beat again. Upon that table where Sherlock laid it (as John persuaded him to do) an old and weary army doctor had picked it up, cleaned off the lint, and put it in his shirt pocket next to his own.

There they sat that night on the couch, the scientist and the doctor, Sherlock reading a chemistry magazine and exhaling at the falsehoods and John watching crap telly. They did not exchange words, as most people do, but instead Sherlock discarded his magazine and put his arm around the shoulders of the ex-army doctor. John sighed into the warm shoulder, and relaxed completely.


End file.
